london and the river thames London Old & New - the Dome of St Pauls and the Millennium Bridge

Another in the series showing new and old architecture in London. Two

exposures to cope with the different light under the bridge and on

the dome of St Paul's. All comments welcome!

Good view of point. Impressive image!!

Regards.

Very nice and original! I do wish for some more DOF to make it perfect.

Thanks marta! Thanks Camilla, yes a shallow dof might work here. Must try it!

mmm, tough. I do like the idea, but not convinced it works. What's up with the bottom-left corner? Looks like the two photo's aren't lining up. And the blur on the bottom-right?

 

Anyway, to the composition itself. First thing I thought of was seeing the dome itself, but that's blue, so probably isn't going to show up against the clouds that well. The contrast between the blacks of the bridge and the whites of St Paul's is interesting. I've tried a couple of different versions. First, the strong V's at the bottom and the height of the cathedral made me wonder what a portrait crop would look like...

Second, the strong contrast made me go for a B&W, cropped down to just the essentials...

Colin, it is a very impressive image, but I agree in part with Stephen's comment .I did another crop of it, just the lower part of the bridge, see if you agree and like it, or if you want me to delete it. Pnina

I even thought about this, pretty extreme, a large histogram adjustment to take out most detail... maybe not.

I'm fascinated by all your suggestions! As an engineer I'm a bit attached to the whole bridge structure but I can see the crop strengthens the idea. I like the high contrast b&w version, Stephen.

strangely enough, this reminds me of the drawings by enki bilal.

 

well, first of all i think this is more new vs. old than old & new working together here, don't you think ?

what i also think is that the perspective works better when the image is flipped.

else, i would give more light to the bridge and dome, sharpen background, desaturate colors, or even go b&w.

once again, i've been macho on the manipulations to make raw ideas clear.

it has to be softened, of course.

Don't you just love it when you see how other peoples' minds work on one of your images? This is a really cool image to play with - so many possibilities obviously. It has strong lines and a great sky (your trademark by now, I think).

Very nice job, I really like this point of view.

Wow! I like your version, behel! As you say - more new vs old in this one. I liked the skeletal feel to the bridge from this angle so it was 'old' vs a 'modern dinosaur' as I saw it!

 

Kim, 'strong lines and a great sky'? I suppose so. Maybe it is easier for other people to spot the recurring features. I've always liked the view of wide angle lenses - about 20 - 24mm seems to be my favourite. Maybe I'll leave them out of the bag one day and see what happens!

Original composition, Colin. Excellent arquitecture image with very nice colors.

 

Gabriel and David - thanks for stopping by.

This image is excellent and so flexible. I much prefer it framed as it is, but in B&W. The tones in the bridge can be retained making it sing against a secondary background. I find they compete with each other, whereas I see it a picture of a bridge against an interesting background.

 

Nevertheless, well done.

Nice one...

Superb view on the bridge shrouds. But was it possible to have a similar view and not hide the Dome ?

You have great light here colin, and a difficult but well done composition.

Thanks Gary. I intend to have a serious go at b&w from digital in the near future. Up till now all my efforts have been a bit disappointing so i reckon I have some learning to do.

 

Darko - thanks, I appreciate your stopping by.

 

Henri, This was the best place to take a shot with the dome seen through the bridge structure. I was standing on a raised platform in front of the Tate Modern gallery and could not go further forward. There might be a better shot from the foreshore but getting down there was difficult.

 

Hans, thanks, what do you think of the alternatives?

hope it is attached

Gary, thanks - that is the sort of thing I would like to be able to do. What sort of process did you go through to arrive at this?

excellent prospective!!!

Has anybody said anything about the colors and the light? They are just great. I agree with some of the comments about the composition.

 

Bram

1 - Paste your image in new document.

 

2 - Add adjustment layer, Channel Mixer (half moon sign in layers box, pick channel mixer).

 

3- Tick monochrome box in bottom left of ChMx box. Play with sliders if you want. Accept.

 

4 - Add second adjustment layer, Curves. Click on centre of line and pul down slightly, or up to suit. Accept. Repeat again if Save for Web imag is not quite right.

 

5 - Flatten image, using top left drop down box on Layers pallete.

6 - Save, in this case keep as RGB.

 

 

That'll be 8 pounds, please ! :-))